Rosa Louise McCauley

Rosa Parks was born February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her parents split up when she was a young girl and her mother moved the family to Pine Level, Alabama to live with Rosa's grandparents. This is where Rosa began to hear about racial equality and activism. As former slaves, her grandparents were strong advocates of racial equality.

Rosa became very aware of segregation and inequality at an early age. She had many encounters and experiences that gave her a first hand look at the way African Americans were treated. Rosa worked as a field hand when she was around seven years old, collecting cotton on a plantation. Rosa said she did not grow up feeling like all white people were hateful. "... there was an old, old white lady who used to take me fishing. She was real nice and treated us like anybody else."

Rosa's mother decided she wanted her daughter to attend school in Montgomery, Alabama, where she could go nine months a year. Rosa started going to school at Miss White's school. Rosa worked in the school, sweeping floors, and cleaning desks, to earn her tuition. "What I learned best about Miss White's school was that I was a person with dignity and self-respect, and I should not set my sights lower than anybody else just because I was black."

At the age of 16, Rosa got her first "public" job. This job was in a shirt factory where she made men's denim blue work jackets. Rosa eventually went back to school, but dropped out to take care of her ill mother. Rosa felt it was her responsibility to take care of her mother. "I did not complain. It was just something that had to be done."